Pre-Dinner Walk

It's very rare for Elyssa to sleep without kicking a fuss. Or as my mum puts it - she wants to "announce" to the world before she sleeps.

So during the recent holiday at Clearwater Sanctuary, when hubby and I walked from the chalet to the dining area, we were surprised to see this :
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Fast asleep without any crying beforehand, and in such an uncomfortable position!

I quickly snapped a photo then tried to put her in a more comfortable sleeping position. When I did that, she woke up and protested by crying loudly. So I let her be (she opened her eyes and started to look around) and asked hubby to continue pushing the stroller.

After a few minutes, I looked at the stroller again and saw this -
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ZZZZZzzzzzzzz again

So I adjusted her position, and again she woke up and protested. And AGAIN she fell asleep soon after in a similar position. I adjusted her (3rd time!) and this time I was successful. Phew! She had a good nap and only woke up when were almost done with our dinner.

Sleep Training (Part 2)

Quite a few people have asked me how Elyssa's sleep training is coming along. Well, the progress has been disappointing.

I wanted to write a day-by-day account like my previous post, but I delayed this post so much that I've forgotten the details. So I'll just write on the overall progress.

We had 2 objectives which were:
(a) to train her to sleep on her own at night (without requiring to suckle to sleep)
(b) to train her not to wake up for night feeds.

For Obj (a), she still goes through the crying process before she finally sleeps, despite all the consistent routine of patting/singing/ switch-off lights/ soft baby music. Sometimes it's just a couple of minutes but on bad days it can be up to 15-20 minutes. No specific pattern there.

Much worse outcome for Obj (b). Most of the time she's been waking up crying anytime from 2am to 5am. It takes quite some time to soothe her back to sleep and sometimes the moment she's placed back on the bed she starts crying again. Sometimes it's after we get back to bed and juuust got to slumber land. Aaarghhh!!! And she gets very cranky when she wakes up for the second time. It takes awfully long to get her to sleep again. A few nights ago, a very exhausted hubby and I decided to just let her cry-it-out. My goodness.... she just screamed and yelled at the top of her lungs and kicked around for an hour. A very angry baby indeed! Same thing for the second night. A real drama queen. Adoi, she's got a stubborn character.

*Sigh*, why can't she be more like her mummy? According to my mum, I slept through the night when I was about 3 months old. And that I used to sleep a lot. Apparently, I once slept throughout when I was given a bath!

Will be continuing with this sleep training. Hopefully there will be good progress soon.

Baby Mobile

It's finally time for me to pack up Elyssa's baby mobile. Too dangerous as she now likes to reach out and pull down one of the soft toys. This baby mobile used to be such an important item and I used to call it my life-saver.

As always, I'm a little sad when I pack up things that she has outgrown. My little princess is growing up so fast!

"Hello doggie"
"Yummy"

Weekend Get-Away

For the Deepavali weekend, hubby, Elyssa and I stayed a night at Clearwater Sanctuary Resort in Batu Gajah. It was our first time there, and I just luuurve the place. Very relaxing and peaceful place indeed. I was a bit worried when I saw the slightly run-down reception, but the chalets were nicely maintained. Spacious, clean, airy and the best part was the amazing view.

View from the balcony

The Balcony

The resort stay also comes with various free activities:
1. 2 hours of kayakking
2. 2 hours of fishing
3. 50 balls at the aquating driving range
4. 2 hours archery
5. 2 hours bicyle rental

In the "pre-baby" days, hubby and I would have happily participated in those activities, but this time we didn't even do a single one but instead spent quite some time in the well equiped childrens room!!

Some photos of Elyssa taken there-

"Shall I pick a yellow ball or green ball??"

"Hmm.... mebbe a blue one instead"
"Mummy, why am I in a basket??"

"My daddy built this house just for me"

While Elyssa was playing with the balls, I saw hubby building a house with the giant colourful building blocks. He kept saying that it was for Elyssa but I could see that he was really enjoying himself. Ha hahh..I think the big kid was the one "playing" with the building blocks. Elyssa only sat in the house for 2 minutes for us to take some photos.

We originally wanted to drive out to Batu Gajah but ended up having both afternoon tea and dinner at the resort. We had slow leisurely walks around the resort with Elyssa on her stroller. Also went for a nice body massage at the spa after dinner. Aaah.... bliss.

The following day, we went to Ipoh after checking out from the resort. Same old routine everytime we go there - food at Kong Heng, coffee at Nam Heong, drive-by my old house (my parents stayed there for >30 years before moving to KL about 2 yrs back), visit hubby's grandma etc etc.

We headed back to KL around 6pm. It was just a short holiday, but a nice one. :)

Happy Photos

We're about to go for a short weekend holiday in Ipoh/Batu Gajah. Since I'm not keen to leave my blog with 2 not-so-happy posts (*sigh* Of melted bottles and falling down...) I thought what better way than to put up some happy photos. :)

So here are some photos taken last night when hubby and I were shopping at Tesco. It was the first time we let Elyssa sit on the shopping trolley and she absolutely enjoyed it.

"Yay, I like my new car-car"

" Must smile more to show how happy I am"

"Bring me here more often, okay?"

She Fell Down :(

My poor, poor princess fell down from the bed early this morning. :(

For the past few nights, I've been sleeping in the guest room while hubby has been sleeping in our king sized bed with Elyssa. Have been doing that so that I can get a few hours of decent sleep during her sleep training period.

But anyway early this morning, I woke up when I heard a loud shout from hubby. Not the fierce type of shout for robbers but a very panicky and scared kind of shout. I could also hear Elyssa crying. As I dashed from the guest room to the master room, I had a sick feeling in my heart that she fell down. My worst suspicion was confirmed when I saw hubby carrying her and rubbing the back of her head. He told me that he woke up and found her wailing on the floor. He said he placed a pillow on the side of the bed but she must have rolled over it or around it. My poor Elyssa.... We checked but did not see any bump on her head. After a while, she stopped crying and I could see that her eyelids were already drooping. I nursed her and she fell asleep within minutes.

This morning, she looked perfectly alright. No bumps and she was smiling as usual. I've asked my parents to observe her today, and if there's nothing unusual then we won't be bring her to a doctor.

*Sigh*, my poor little baby. I wish that I was the one sleeping with her cos I normally wake up the moment she moves. But poor hubby too. He looked so traumatised and guilty that I ended up reassuring him that it's ok. We both decided that it's time Elyssa sleeps in her baby cot from now on though.

My Avent Bottles

This mangled mess is what's left of two of my Avent bottles. Looks scary huh?

I was changing Elyssa's diaper one morning when I heard hubby walk out to the wet kitchen. Moments later, I heard him shouting "sei lor, sei lor" (die la, die la..) I rushed out and saw that the whole wet kitchen was covered with smoke and there was a strong plastic-ky smell.

The pot of water that he used to boil the bottles had completely dried up, and both the plastic bottles and the plastic handle of the pot melted!!! Bleah.... absent-minded hubby left the fire on for more than an hour. Expensive mistake cos the bottles were about RM40+ and the pot another RM50+. (could have gotten a nice toy for the little princess with that money)

But I guess I should be grateful that there was no explosion or fire. Needless to say, hubby got a lot of nagging from me!